Movie Night
by D.K. Archer
Summary: Pure fluff. Jumba and Pleakley settle down to watch the late night movie, but the other members of the household make it a little difficult.


Movie Night D.K. Archer

For the most part, the ritual of the late night movie kept an erratic schedule. They ran against infomercials long after Lilo and Nani retired to their rooms, both having places to be in the mornings, and the unemployed aliens of the household stayed awake on the couch until the small, quiet hours of the morning. Whatever part of the film made the heroine scream and Pleakley hide behind his shoulder were the parts that made Jumba laugh the hardest, and whenever Pleakley was leaned forward intently on a dramatic moment or an eroticized vampire scene Jumba was bored, and getting restless. 

Sometimes they were too tired for movies, or too busy, or Jumba just couldn't pull himself away from his work to go watch them. It was rare that Pleakley was the unwilling partner. It was also rare that the movie night fell on a Friday, when both Lilo and Nani had the next day free (the timing was intentional on all parts). That particular Friday, however, there was a Godzilla movie, starting at ten o'clock. Jumba had already shut off the lights, found the right channel, and plunked down into the middle of the couch, the law of gravity dictating that the only place on the sloping cushions Pleakley would be able to sit would be at the bottom of the valley, against Jumba's ribs. It was all a normal set up for a badly translated monster movie, and Pleakley had gotten comfortable in the crook of Jumba's arm when Lilo came trundling in in a nightgown and slippers, and plunked herself down on the floor in front of the sofa. 

Stitch came scurrying in after her. He had a broad, excited grin on his teeth.

Pleakley sat up, blinking. "Lilo, you're supposed to be in bed!"

"Not tonight! Tonight's Godzilla!" She said brightly, and Stitch bounced. "Nani says I can watch 'till eleven because it's Friday. Besides, Stitch wants to see Godzilla smash up Tokyo, right Stitch?"

"Iie!" Stitch reared up and snarled like the wolf man, flopping a long dripping tongue out onto the floor. Pleakley jerked his feet back from the puddle.

"I don't want that little monster getting any ideas!" He snapped.

"Eh, don't worry, nearest big city is being islands away." Jumba said offhandedly. "He get excited, the worst he can do is tear down shopping mall."

Pleakley whimpered. "Not the mall! Jumba!"

Jumba just shrugged. Nani's parenting tactics were out of his jurisdiction; he couldn't force Lilo to go to bed.

The commercials ended and a swell of ominous music poured out of the television, accompanied by the tall, bright letters of the movie title.

"Little girls shouldn't be up past ten." Pleakley insisted, almost sulkily.

Jumba smirked "Maybe she'll be becoming insomniac psychopath now. Do family proud." He shook a triumphant fist at the ceiling.

Pleakley didn't seem to find that amusing. He pushed Jumba until he scooted over to one side of the couch, a little baffled but not protesting the sudden mood swing, and Pleakley sat himself on the other side where he wouldn't be influenced by the sag of padding under Jumba's weight.

By the time the poorly synchronized voice doubles were nattering away in the opening scenes, Nani emerged from the kitchen with a bag of hot popcorn, flicking on the light as she came. She plunked herself down in the middle of the couch. Jumba tried to move to give her more room, but the cushions shifted with his weight, sending her falling against his stomach with a yelp and popcorn pieces flying into the air, Stitch scrabbling after them before they even hit the ground. Jumba pushed her towards the middle and she got herself balanced on the uneven seat while Stitch licked kernels off the couch cushion.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked.

Lilo shook her head. "No. Godzilla hasn't even shown up yet."

"Well don't get too into it." Nani warned. "You know you have to go to bed before it's over."

"Yeah, yeah." Lilo waved it off.

There was a stretch of quiet while American actors tried to babble to Japanese lips. Nani offered the popcorn bowl around, but Pleakley put his hand up to refuse.

"You know what, I think I'm a little tired after all." Pleakley said, and faked a wide yawn that inevitably turned into a real one. "I'm going to go to bed."

"You are not wanting to see giant lizard smash buildings? Lots of violence and destruction and foam rubber padding." Jumba tempted.

Pleakley shook his head politely and stood up. "No, I think I'll just get some sleep." He said cooly. "Goodnight Lilo, Nani. Jumba."

Nani raised an eyebrow at his back. "He okay?"

"Eh, he is Pleakley." Jumba said with a shrug. "Who can tell?"

A giant moth monster was screeching at buildings on the screen. Jumba watched for a few minutes, but between the sound of crunching popcorn and Stitch's excited gibbering it was difficult to be interested in the monsters. He glanced over at the stairs absently and sighed.

"I am thinking I will be going to bed, too." He said, standing up with the ominous creak of weight in his knees. The sofa happily reinflated itself without him.

Nani frowned. "Hey, we didn't barge in on anything… did we?" she asked carefully. Jumba blinked at her.

"There is nothing to be barging in on." He said.

Nani didn't look that convinced, but at least she didn't start apologizing. Jumba didn't quite know himself what she would be apologizing for.

When he was gone Lilo looked back, a little confused.

"Did we do something wrong?"

Nani shrugged helplessly. "I honestly couldn't tell you."

Pleakley was already getting himself changed for sleep when Jumba stuck his head in the door. He waited while Pleakley struggled into the nightshirt, grumbling to himself, and even until he'd flipped back the covers before Jumba knocked on the doorframe. Pleakley looked back at him, startled.

"Jumba? What are you doing up here? Aren't you watching the movie?"

Jumba shrugged. "Movie not so interesting."

"Since when do you not find corny, overdone monsters tearing cities apart interesting?"

Jumba ignored that and came in, shutting the door behind him.

"Why'd you leave?" he asked lightly. Pleakley had gotten himself under the covers and fumbled on the nightstand for his eye mask.

"I told you, I'm tired." He grumbled.

"You were not being tired fifteen minutes ago."

Pleakley pulled the eye mask down over his face and flopped back onto his pillow. "I am now."

Jumba grumbled. "Do not be so difficult. What, you are not wanting to see monster movie? It being only for an hour until Little Girl goes to bed, we could watch sappy colorless movie afterwards. Bad melodrama, with no plot, lots of sickening emotional parts." He stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Just kind you like."

"It's got nothing to do with the movie. I'm just tired!"

"And I am not believing you."

Jumba sat down on the edge of the bunk, the boards creaking under his weight. Pleakley flipped up the bottom of the eye mask and glared at him.

"Alright, fine, it IS the movie, will you go back downstairs already? I'm trying to sleep."

Jumba scratched his chin. "Hmm. No. Still not beleiving you. You didn't stay long enough to know movie was bad."

"Neither did you." he snipped.

"Eh, I said movie was uninteresting, not bad."

Pleakley rolled his eye and put the mask back over it.

"Something is bothering you." he said. "No fuming, I told you before, is making you act like ex wife."

"I'm not fuming, I'm just tired." Pleakley snapped.

Jumba nodded. "Definitely fuming."

Pleakley gave an exaggerated sigh and sat up, jerking the mask off. "Look, I just want to go to bed! So either shut up and go to sleep or go back downstairs and watch the movie with Nani and Lilo!"

Jumba leaned back against the footposts of the bed and eyed him. He made no move of going anywhere. "Funny you mention Little Girl and Larger Girl, no?"

"What's so funny about it!"

"I am thinking that you are jealous." He said with a smirk. "We settle in for bad horror film, you are fine. Little Girl in bunny slippers come walking in, you are not fine. Larger Girl with popcorn come in, suddenly you are being too tired to watch."

"I'm not jealous." Pleakley snapped defensively.

"Ah yes you are. I think you are being wanting me all to yourself." He said, grinning at the taunt. Pleakley always rose to them; it wouldn't be any fun if he just let them go past.

Pleakley crossed his arms. "So what if I am! You're always in your lab evil-geniusing while I'm stuck downstairs cleaning house! We never spend any time together except for movie night!"

That wasn't quite the direction Jumba had expected, and he blinked at him. "You are never wanting me around when you are cleaning!" he said lamely, wondering how he got on the defensive. "I am staying out of way by keeping in lab! Besides, you are one who left tonight, not me. You could have stayed even with human girls."

"This has nothing to do with the human girls!" Pleakley flopped back down and pushed the pillow over his head.

"Well I am sorry, psychic reading of minds is not my specialty." Jumba grumbled, and tugged the edge of the pillow. "If it is not the girls and it is not the movie, what has gotten you in such tizzy?"

"I'm not in a tizzy." Pleakley pouted.

"You are same as you are fuming and you are knowing it."

"Hmph."

Pleakley remained firmly entrenched under his pillow. Jumba just stared at him for a long moment, then snorted rudely and patted the pillow over his head. "Having your way, then." He said, and the bed springs creaked as he rose. Pleakley peeked out from under the pillow as Jumba turned out the light and disappeared from the room, the yellow bulb in the hallway streaking across the floorboards from the door.

Well…that HAD been what he'd wanted Jumba to do. 

Sulking, his mind had begun to fog in with the encroaching small comfort of sleep when he heard the floorboards in the hall strain again under Jumba's footsteps. Backlit in the doorjamb, Jumba had the portable computer remote terminal packed under his arm, the light trickling in around his formidable bulk. He snapped the door shut behind him and Pleakley listened while he fumbled with the machine in the dark.

"What are you DOING?" he asked finally.

The small screen flickered to life and he could see Jumba hunched over the pod, typing command codes into the computer. He heard the shrill sound of data transfer as the computer connected to the intergalactic internet, and Pleakley rolled his eye. Couldn't he do his web surfing in the lab?

Jumba gave a bark of triumph and picked up the remote terminal, walking to the bunk. "Scoot." He ordered briskly, and Pleakley pulled himself over to one side, confused. Jumba wedged onto the other half of the bunk and put the computer between them. On the small, pale screen, a download bar was filling, and Pleakley wondered if he was going to have to cover his eye now (he'd SEEN the sorts of sites Jumba had bookmarked on his computer).

The screen flashed and went black. White title letters in Plorginarian faded slowly in, announcing that Blikmar Productions Presents, a film by Ruberis Flizmor and Berky Botts, Starring Akmor Vagoul.

Pleakley blinked. "It's 'The Distant Fields of Blingmor!' This won the interplanetary independent film festival, it isn't supposed to be released for download for another four months!"

Jumba shrugged. "Eh, there always bootleggers. It is big long boring independent film with incoherent symbolism and five subplots. I figure just the sort of thing you'd want to watch."

Pleakley grinned and sidled up beside him. "I've been waiting to see this for months." He acceded. "This is great!"

Jumba shrugged. The narrative began, subtitled in standard galactic for the non-plorginarians in the audience. After thirty incomprehensible minutes (to him, anyway) Jumba was asleep and snoring faintly, overloaded by alien film techniques and complex, subtle symbolism. Through the door an occasional Godzilla related explosion could be heard from downstairs, and Stitch's excited babble.

Smiling, Pleakley snuggled in under Jumba's arm to watch the rest of the movie. 


End file.
